


as if she is born to die

by sevendeadlyfun



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 18:52:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4191093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevendeadlyfun/pseuds/sevendeadlyfun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isaac tells Henry that there is no room for a Savior in the world he’s created. Isaac is a bitch ass liar. How Emma ended up in that tower, a Savior in a damned world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	as if she is born to die

**Author's Note:**

> I started this right after watching the series finale which I only really watched because GIFS of Evil Queen Snow are really intriguing. I was super peeved that we didn't actually see how Isaac's AU comes into being - what makes Snow turn evil, enslave Charming, and try to kill Regina? Then I remembered that's what fanfic is for so - here's my version of how Emma winds up in that tower. Title is taken from the poem [Wonder as Wander](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176449) by Sharon Olds.

“Love?” Queen Eva stared at her daughter. “Was it love that created you? Was it love that keeps our kingdom safe? Will love be what puts you on my throne and keeps you there?”

“Mother,” Snow White says, eyes focused on the red-streaked lump of blackened heart thumping in her mother’s grasping hands. “It will do all that and more.”

“Oh, Snow.” Queen Eva walks across the wide expanse of polished floor. James lurches behind her. “My beloved Snow.”

Her free hand cups Snow’s chin. “Love is weakness.”

James’ heart turns to powder in her hands. Snow, caught in her mother’s grip, can only watch as his body falls lifeless to the ground. It cannot be real. It is some trick of her mother’s to hurt her, to bend her to Eva’s will. As she stands over his lifeless body, she swears she hears the beating of his now-vanished heart, faint but steady, in her ears

It is this strong heartbeat that fills the room when she pushes her mother through the looking glass. This same heartbeat will drown out the screams of her new husband, King George, as the poisoned wine creeps through his bloodstream. A heartbeat that almost drowns out the pounding of the one she holds in her hand as she captures James’ brother, David.

He is with me, she thinks as she watches his mirror image kneel at her feet. Not even death could steal my beloved from me.

Snow is wrong. Her True Love is gone. The heartbeat she hears belongs to her daughter.

  ***

“It is a daughter, Your Majesty.” The Blue Fairy, flying just out of Snow’s reach, smirks.  “A product of Your Majesty’s True Love. She will be a Savior, full of the lightest magic.”

Snow convulses, her hand scrabbling along the sides of her swollen belly. “Get it out of me. Now. I won’t let myself be…poisoned by this brat’s goody-good magic.”

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” the Blue Fairy says with a sparkle in her voice that means she is not sorry. “The child’s magic protects her. She cannot be removed from you until the hour of her birth.”

Snow glares up at the fairy’s pointed face. A fireball grows in her hand and she weighs the satisfaction of murdering the insolent sprite against the likelihood she’ll need the fairy’s dark magic again. The fireball dissipates.

“Very well. I shall need someplace safe to keep it after – after.”

She stops to think. She’s fought good witches, good fairies, and heroes full of light. None of them present as much of a challenge as this one baby. Where in her realm is safe enough to hold the power of a magical child? She closes her eyes, her hand falling to rest on her belly.

She turns and smiles at the fairy. “I know just how you can apologize for failing me. Build a tower. Someplace where no one will ever find this Savior girl. Make sure it will hold her until the day she dies. ”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Blue’s wings flutter and she dips low in front of Snow White. “As you command.”

“And Blue?” Snow calls out as the fairy flies away.

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“If she escapes, you will be punished.” Snow smiles as the fairy’s luster dims. “Now go.”

The fairy shimmers and disappears, the fluttering susurrus of her wings sending a shiver up Snow’s spine.

Snow closes her eyes and brings Charming’s heart to her lips, letting the heat of it warm her. He is hers, forever and completely hers. She keeps his heart safe from anyone who would think to harm it. Well, anyone but her.

“Charming,” she whispers against the steady thump of his heart. “Find me a dragon. No, a dragon egg. My pure daughter will need a dark creature to guard her and keep her. Find me what I need and bring it to me.”

He is not there, but she knows what he is saying. “I will always find what you need, Your Majesty.”

He always says that. He is not her True Love, not his brother, not anything she would wish to take to her heart or her bed. But he is useful and that is good enough.

Who needs love? Love puts this dratted child in her belly and fills her up with light magic. Love is weakness. Already she feels her magic weaken. Weak magic will not give her the power to punish those who have wronged her.

Soon, though. Soon this baby will be gone and she will be able to concentrate of what matters most. Soon she will be revenged.

***

Occasionally, Snow conjures an image of the child hidden away in her tower. Blue, in a fit of malicious genius, sent an errant fairy to care for the child. The little sprite, all green and gold, had refused Blue’s demands once too often and now she’s locked in a tower.

It pleases Snow to think that she can solve so many problems for so many people in such a simple way. Her child is gone, Blue’s troublesome fairy is gone, and Maleficent has learned not to cross Queen Snow. Snow reaches down and lifts the tiny dragon onto her lap.

“You’ll do just fine,” she whispers, “to keep my little Emma where she can’t harm anyone. Especially me.”

Tendrils of dark magic flow from Snow’s fingertips to curl around shiny scales and trembling wings. A fire-breathing dragon cannot guard a magical child if it will be her friend, if it might save her. The magic she works will ensure this dragon is never anything but the dark guardian Snow requires.

***

The child grows. More than that, she thrives. Tinkerbell keeps her well and if she wonders why she is raising a child the Evil Queen would rather see dead she keeps that question to herself.

Emma is not like other babies. She is calmer, quieter, her eyes brighter than any other Tink has ever seen. When she begins to talk it is not words but whole sentences that come out of her tiny rosebud mouth.

It is a kind of magic, Tinkerbell thinks, that a girl so young could have such a wide view of a world she has never seen.

But whatever the world sees, she knows she is not young. She is Emma Swan and she remembers being locked in the tower. That she remembers as clearly as anything that ever happened in Storybrooke. Her mother’s face contorted in rage, her father’s sword raised high against her – no matter what else, she knows she’ll never forget that day.

When Tink leaves, when Lily appears, she knows the end is coming soon.

She is The Savior. She was born to bring back all the happy endings. Erase this book and its foul stories, return her family to Storybrooke, and rescue her son – that should do it. She is 10 the first time she tries.

The rope she fashions is crude, its knots barely strong enough to hold her. Her magic is weak, unformed and untrained, her hands not yet strong enough to hold up the weight of a sword but she does her best.

She is almost to the ground before she feels the prick of strong claws. Soaring through the air, she struggles to free herself. If she can just twist, maybe her shirt will rip and she can – but even as she thinks it, she is falling free straight through the tower window. Trapped.

She tries again and again.

The last time she is able to walk free, she is 16. Tink is long gone but the lessons she taught are still useful. How to make yourself small, how to slip past a sleeping dragon on quiet feet – she doesn’t need magic to do any of this and for a minute, she feels a bubble of hope swell in her chest. She can do it. She can save them all.

Cold steel against the small of her back pops her fragile hope.

“Don’t move,” he warns and she wants to cry as she hears him, so cold and angry.

“Daddy –“

“No!” he yells, and the sword digs deeper into her back. “You are no daughter of mine.”

“No,” a soft voice agrees. “No, she could never be your daughter.”

“Mom,” Emma says, eyes darting from side to side. “Mom, just listen –“

“No,” Snow’s voice says again. “No, you listen. I am the Queen and you will listen.”

In the space of a breath, she is back in her tower room. “Please, Mom, Daddy, I can fix it, just let me fix it. Please.” As she speaks chains grow out from the floor, twisting like vines as they wrap around her wrists.

“Perhaps you’re right,” Snow says in her ear. “Perhaps you can fix it. Perhaps you can return all the happy endings. Too bad you’ll never find out. “

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
